NBCU Cable Nets Get Olympics Boost

BEIJING, August 19: More
than 196 million viewers have tuned in to NBC Universal’s coverage of the
Beijing Olympics through the first ten days, scoring big numbers for its cable
networks as well as NBC Nightly News and Today.

The Beijing Olympics
ten-day average prime-time viewership is 29.8 million, already making it the
fourth most-watched television event in U.S. history. Through August 17,
Olympics coverage on NBCU cable networks reached 73.3 million average viewers,
up 31 percent from August 2007 (56 million) and up 30 percent from the Athens
Games. Through August 15, USA Network's coverage averaged nearly 1 million
viewers, MSNBC’s was 650,000, CNBC's was 606,000 and Oxygen, in its first
appearance covering the Olympics, had an average of 658,000. Telemundo’s
coverage through August 17 reached 12 million unique viewers, up 12 percent
from the Athens Games.

Today is on course to have its highest delivery since
the Torino Games in February 2006, as well as its best advantage over Good
Morning America since the week of
the 2000 Presidential election. NBC Nightly News is on track for its best lead over the competition
since the week of the Tom Brokaw/Brian Williams transition.

Through the first ten days
of the Beijing Games, NBCOlympics.com has already generated 754.3 million page
views, nearly 200 million more than the combined totals for the entire 17 days
of the Torino and Athens Games (561.1 million). NBC Olympics mobile WAP site
has amassed 21.4 million page views.

—By Kristin
Brzoznowski